In Torres v. Madrid, published March 25, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court, 5-8 (with Justice Barrett taking no part in the decision), reversed a Court of Appeals ruling that a suspect's continued flight after being shot by police negates a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim. Officers executing a warrant at an apartment complex approached the plaintiff as she got into the driver's seat of her vehicle. The plaintiff believed the officers were carjackers. She hit the gas to escape. The officers fired their pistols at her to stop her, hitting her twice. She drove to a nearby parking lot, and stole a car to escape. She was eventually arrested after she sought medical help. She sued the officers under 42 U.S.C. ยง 1983 for use of excessive force. She contended the shooting was an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted the officers summary judgment, on the ground that the plaintiff was not seized under the Fourth Amendment. The 10th Circuit affirmed.
The Supreme Court majority disagreed. Reviewing common law (particularly debtor arrest law), the majority concluded that police touching of a person with the intent to arrest is an arrest, and thus a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, even if the person escapes. The analysis does not change because the officers used force from a distance--firearms--to restrain the plaintiff. What is required is corporal seizing or touching the defendant's body. That can be accomplished by a bullet as by the tip of a finger. The use of force standing alone is not a seizure, it must be accompanied by the intent to restrain, as opposed to force applied by accident or for some other purpose. Because the officer's subjective intent and the suspect's subjective perception are not factors in the use of force analysis, the proper inquiry is whether the conduct objectively manifests an intent to restrain. The seizure by force lasts only as long as the force is applied, unless the subject submits. The majority rejected intentional acquisition of physical control of the suspect as the test. In this case, the officers seized the plaintiff by shooting her with the intent to restrain her movement.
Three justices dissented. They held that seizure of a suspect requires actual possession of the suspect.
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